Yquems from 1784 to 1991

A Purple pager, tempted by an Yquem tasting being organised by Bipin Desai of southern California, wrote the other day to ask for my tasting notes from Hardy Rodenstock's extraordinary tasting of mainly ancient with some modern Yquems held in Munich over several days in September 1998. I thought they might be of more general interest and reproduce them below – although with what we now know about Rodenstock, it is difficult to unpick which of these wines is definitively genuine.

All in bottles with original cork unless stated otherwise. I seem to have busted my 20-point scale by quite a margin.

1784 (Thomas Jefferson...